Donate A Book To Poor Kids This Christmas

I recently met a lovely lady here in San Miguel named Elsmarie. For almost twenty years, Elsmarie has run a charitable non-profit organization called “Ojala Nińos,” which roughly translated means ‘hope for children.’

This is a post asking you for a tiny donation this Christmas. Your small donation of just £2/$3 (or more if you’d like) will really help these kids. I’ll let Elsmarie explain in her own words below.

Elsmarie: “Believing that true education comes from our inherent curiosity to explore, discover and LEARN, and that reading is the power source for education, Ojala Niños offers this opportunity to over 100 indigenous children in the rural community of San Miguel Viejo.

Literacy is a very important part of the alternative education program for these children. Many don’t attend school at all; most children leave school after 6th grade, and some still can’t read or write; the few who continue often leave before getting to high school; most children were never read to as infants and have never read a book! Literary skills in their own language are very lacking for their future.

The Ojala Niños program offers these skills to all of our children, with support from the San Miguel Literary Sala and Libros para Todos. The latter provides a special book once a year to over 500 children in rural communities, by a famous living author, who later comes to San Miguel to meet the children and sign their books. This is a wonderful experience, and we want to keep providing good, interesting, exciting reading to our adolescents and teens all year long.

This holiday season, Ojala Niños would like to buy 40 different books, especially written for young readers, as their 3 Kings gift on January 6. Our goal is to raise 4000 pesos, (£150 or $235) with your help.

We’re asking you to donate 50 or 100 pesos to “BUY A BOOK” for an Ojala Niño this season.”